Trade off between success and durability

Being successful is decidedly the goal of most people. Often successful people say that the most important is the journey not the destination. But how to be sure , that on our way toward success we don’t burn the candles at both ends.

A lot of the most fortunate died very early. Elvis Presley at 42 , Boris Vian at 39 , Jimi Hendrix at 27 , Bruce Lee at 33 . There is definitely a case that could be made about the music industry especially in the second part of the 20th century.

However in our social acceleration society , even with the medical progress we see a lot of people dying too soon even at the height of their fame.

There are multiple options, an accident , burn the candles at both ends or just disease.

A special case could be made about degenerative disease because some are founding their strength in their weakness like Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Success isn’t easy

Don’t listen to motivation coach that say that success is easy if you want to attract success , you need to do more , better than others. And that isn’t easy. You need to be original to do things differently. There is no blueprint to become a member of the 0,01%. The definition of success changes a lot , is it monetary success , diplomas , influence , etc. Often to achieve greater amount of work you think that the easiest is to sacrifice some sleep. The worst choice you could make. But we tend to think in our society that sleep isn’t important and that sleep deprivation is glorious ( Trump ). Coffee doesn’t replace sleep.

The main risk is to be ephemeral.

So you need to work hard and keep up with hard work. That’s particularly true in our appearance society, being famous isn’t hard , the hardest is to stay famous. If you’re surfing on the internet, you can find a lot of articles about celebrity that doesn’t last. And I think that’s one of the priorities and also a big concern for all Social Media Influencers , because trends and internet are moving so fast. Monetary success isn’t guaranteed , you can be rich one day and broke the next day. That’s a big theme of the financial literature , rich is in your head. What’s that means is that no matter how much you have on your account , you can still be poor in your head. The real rich are financially intelligent but are not worried about money.

If you are worried about people that will betray you , that’s not the best way to keep a good sleep. More broadly all the noise you have around you is really difficult to handle. Even when you’re successful you’re under a lot of pressure and undergo a lot of things.

If you earned a lot of money, you want to spend it so you work really hard and instead of resting yourself on your free time. You do a bunch of exhausting activity to be seen and to spend your money. Often you want to compensate your extensive work with a lot of extensive vacation.

Durability

Durability is really hard because there is a delay between what you do and what that would cause on your future you . Smokers see most of the worst effects 20 30 years after when that’s too late to do something. The worst part is when you live at 150% , you don’t know you’re causing damage to yourself.

In our life we have the impression that we always need to do more. That’s really difficult to offset because often we really need to do more. The combination of motivation and good habits is the key to success.

However your environment isn’t stable , your habits need to adapt to the change. Motivation needs good goals that make the equilibrate even more fragile. To resume , you need to continue to work hard with good goals. And at the same time to keep a good routine without succumbing to pressure.

We can’t ever be perfect , so we need to permanently adapt , the most successful in the long term will be the people able to keep learning and adapting their life.

I will let you with the example of a tech tycoon who lives too fast , Steve Jobs was a genius , one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time. But he sacrifices a lot to achieve what he wants . And died too soon. That’s not an easy choice , not something a lot of people are willing to do. But we will never know if he was conscious that he choose this path when he damages most his health in the seventies and with his two CEO jobs at Pixar and Apple. Now I see more entrepreneurs doing the same choice , Jack Dorsey Twitter and Square , Elon musk Tesla , Space X and the boring company. I wish them a longer life .